Fast-forward to today, and Sprint CEO Dan Hesse is now pushing back that profitability date until 2015. Hesse still stands by his assertion that "carrying the iPhone will be quite profitable;" shareholders are just going to have to wait a bit longer than they originally envisioned.

[Source: TechnoBuffalo]

For anyone that questions Hesse's decision to make a deal with Apple, he simply tells them to take a look at embattled T-Mobile. T-Mobile recently announced that it would be laying off an additional 900 workers in the U.S. and has lost contract customers for 10 straight quarters.

T-Mobile is also the only one of America's "Big 4" wireless carriers that doesn't have the iPhone.

In other Sprint news, TechnoBuffalo has learned that the wireless carrier will end early upgrades for customers effective June 1. The program allowed customers to upgrade to a new phone within 10 to 14 days of their originally scheduled upgrade date.

Granted, waiting an extra two weeks isn't going to be a deal breaker for most people, so we doubt that many Sprint customers will cry themselves to sleep over this move.

Yeah, I think it was a really poor decision to basically stake the entire future of the company on an absurdly expensive iPhone deal. Won't be profitable until 2015? The entire mobile landscape could be completely different by that point.

They should've focused on getting exclusive access to some of the latest and greatest on Android and Windows Phone instead, and putting more captiol into improving their network. A lot of people would love to get away from AT&T and Verizon, but can't because Sprint/T-mobile simply don't have the coverage/capacity they need in their area.